Christie’s Approval Rating Reaches New High Mark

NEW BRUNSWICK – Gov. Chris Christie’s favorability and job performance ratings are at their highest since he took office in January 2010, according to the latest Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.

For the first time, 50 percent of registered New Jersey voters feel favorably toward Christie – an increase of four percentage points since late March. Those with an unfavorable opinion have declined to 39 percent, while 11 percent continue to hold no opinion.

Christie’s job performance grades also have improved as voters become more favorable toward him. The governor received an A or B grade from 46 percent of respondents, up 3 points. Those grading him as D or F fell three points to 29 percent. Almost one-quarter (24 percent) continue to grade him C, which is unchanged since March.

“After some weakening between November and March, Governor Christie’s favorability rating has rebounded to as positive as we’ve seen,” said Poll Director David Redlawsk, a professor of political science at Rutgers. “Despite recent controversies over plans for Rutgers and less-than-positive economic news, voters are trending toward more positive ratings for the governor and the state. But more improvement will probably require more voters to think things are getting better, not just standing still.”

Just over half of voters now say New Jersey is going in the right direction, up four points. Meanwhile, “wrong track” responses remain steady at 40 percent, while 9 percent are unsure about how the state is doing. Half of voters also believe things have gotten neither better nor worse.

Results are from a poll of 1,191 adults with a subsample of 1,065 registered voters conducted statewide among both landline and cell phone households from May 31-June 4. The registered voter subsample has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.